The Reverend Jesse L. Jackson (center behind banner) leads the Save the Dream march from DQ Native American University to Davis, California, City Park on October 25, 1997, in preparation for the march from West Sacramento to the Sacramento State Captiol on October 27, 1997. CRS trained volunteer parade marshals and accompanied the march providing constant communication between participants and law enforcement. CRS Senior Conciliation Specialist Booker T Neal (far right with DOJ hat) served as the team leader.
Photo: Vermont McKinney, CRS
Assistance to Schools and Universities
CRS offered several programs and services to schools and school districts for managing multicultural conflicts. These included conflict resolution services, assistance in developing student conflict resolution or peer mediation teams (Inglewood, Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Paramount, California; Cortez, Colorado; Newark, New Jersey), SPIR (Berkeley, California) or SPIRIT-when police are included programs (Glendale, California); school community-based programs, conflict management, and cultural diversity awareness training for school staff (Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts; Jasper, Texas); school dialogues (Los Angeles, California); and management of school disruption and violence. In all cases, CRS attempted to involve stakeholders in the prevention or conflict resolution process. CRS also mediated a 40-yearold major court-referred mediation case involving Little Rock, Arkansas, schools. This case is described in detail under "Case Studies of CRS Community Dispute Resolution" later in this report.
CRS assistance was requested to address racial problems originating from within schools, from outside schools, and from real and perceived biases in the institutions themselves.
Examples of racial problems originating within schools that prompted CRS alerts in FY 1998 included: racial fights (Atlanta, Georgia;